


To Rest

by Redisaid



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: F/M, I don't know, I guess it's sort of platonic?, Link pov, They are sad nerds who need a nap, post-game spoilers, some memory spoilers as well, that's basically it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 15:58:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13814547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redisaid/pseuds/Redisaid
Summary: He remembered Zelda, but he had forgotten that he never quite knew what to make of her. She was always talking, so any period of silence between them was utterly terrifying.





	To Rest

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written Zelda fiction for 10 years, but was instantly hit with a buttload of feels when I turned BotW back on after a few months away from the game the other day. So I wrote them. A little tribute to an old ship that I still love.

He remembered Zelda, but he had forgotten that he never quite knew what to make of her. She was always talking, so any period of silence between them was utterly terrifying. It meant something must be wrong. Maybe he had violated some sort of royal protocol he had forgotten about. Maybe she saw yet another thing that reminded her of their past failures. There had been plenty of tears already. Link had no idea what to do when girls cried, but when Zelda cried, he just froze--like a deer, muscles stiff, about to run, but unable to in that moment.

Coming to Hateno had been a mistake. He thought she would want some rest first, before tackling the daunting task of rebuilding her kingdom. The quaint village seemed like a good place, and his little cottage there just outside of town would allow her some quiet anonymity for a few days. Of course, he had forgotten that the ride there would take them through the field of guardian corpses where he had nearly died. Where he had failed her.

So of course she cried. And he froze. But they continued to ride. The horses would move even if he could not.

And now again, his muscles were tensing, anticipating tears. He was holding the door to the cottage open for her. Shit. Maybe it was the champion’s weapons he’d hung on the wall. He had no heart to use them, lest they break like all the others did. That must have been it.

But no, the princess’ eyes were wandering, taking in the humble home. It was no palace, that's for certain, but it had been a comfortable place to sleep for a few nights and stow extra gear. Perhaps he should have thought about how she would see it before bringing her there. What was the alternative, though? Sleeping in the ruins of the castle surely wouldn't have been more appealing, right?

Finally, she spoke, “There’s two of everything.”

He had never bothered with counting, but yes, a quick glance told him she was right. Two chairs, two place settings, two stalls for their horses. Two...no three coat pegs. Um wait, one bed. One desk. No, there was not two of everything. This was why she needed rest. She couldn't even count correctly after what she’d been through.

He was about to object, but she wandered over to the table to poke at the cutlery. 

“Did you plan for this? Did you try to make a place for us to go, once this nightmare was over?” Zelda asked, her eyes focused not on him, but on the simple earthenware dishes in front of her.

No. He had not. He had paid the carpenters to furnish the place, but had given little in the way of directions for how to do it. 

He had to wonder how much she could see of him as she watched over his travels. Did she know it was nothing more than just a casual exchange of rupees and a shrug that got him two chairs for his table? Was she just being coy? But why would she bother? 

A lifetime and then some ago, she used to complain that she could never understand what was going through his head, since he spoke so little. Despite the immense amount of words that came out of her mouth in any given day, he was always just as mystified about the inner-workings of her mind.

Link decided it was best to be honest, “I didn’t really think about it.” He spoke quietly around her, more so than usual. He didn't know why. Was he afraid to scare her? As if he could startle her like some insect he was sneaking up on?

Zelda’s fingers traced the edge of the plate anyway. “I didn't either. It’s not that I thought you would fail, but...I don't think I wanted to picture this future. Everything, and everyone is just gone. They are so long gone that they are legends now--not even memories.”

“Impa,” he reminded her. “The Zoras. Perhaps you might feel better around those who remember--”

She cut him off. “Wasn't it your idea that I should rest? That we should avoid those meetings for a few more days?” Her eyes found him for the first time since they entered the house. They were angry, not welling with tears.

Which, honestly, was even worse. 

She didn't let him try to defend himself. Zelda’s shoulders immediately dropped. The tension in her eyes fled as suddenly as it appeared. “You are right, though. I'm not ready to see them. You are trying to help, I know. You are always just trying to help. I’m sorry.”

She pulled out one of the chairs and took a seat. She looked so much smaller somehow, slumped against the table. Just like that, her silence returned and hung heavy between them.

Link didn't like seeing her look that small. Not after what she’d done. Her presence had been so massive, so powerful. Fighting for all that time--he couldn't even comprehend it.

His eyes fell to the kitchen. His feet took him there. Link didn't know what to do when girls cried, much less princesses. He did know that he was starving, and he had to think that one hundred years of battling the ultimate evil must have been hungry work as well.

Normally, he would get to work and let the princess speak for herself if she wanted a plate. Today, that didn't feel appropriate, so he asked, “Are you hungry?”

It took her a while to answer. He already had the pot out and was digging in the cabinet for ingredients by the time she replied with a simple, “Yes.”

He tried to remember what she liked to eat. One might think that a bodyguard would know things like this, but Link found himself drawing a blank. He remembered plenty of feasts where she would pick at her food and pretend to drink from the cup she toasted with. He remembered them mostly because he was cringing to himself the entire time, watching so much good food go to waste as it was scraped from the plates of the noble guests and into the garbage. Imagine being too proper to actually eat your dinner? What an awful life.

So he started to make what he wanted, or well, more like what was possible given the sorry state of his pantry. He boiled some rice. He sauteed some mushrooms. In the long stretch of silence, Link made a respectable mushroom risotto. Nothing fancy, just filling and easy.

He went to the table to pick up their plates. She was watching him with rapt attention, and something like awe in her eyes. He would cook for them before, when they travelled with the other champions. Goddess knows no one else knew how to cook. This wasn't anything new. Why was she staring?

He tried not to think about it. He dished out a generous portion and handed the plate back to her before going for his own. He scooped up a small pitcher of water on his way back, but hesitated before sitting down across from her.

Surely they had eaten together around campfires before. Why was this any different? Why was it strange, wrong even? What difference did a piece of furniture make? What was wrong with two chairs, two plates, two cups?

Zelda blinked, then looked away from him. She hadn't touched her food yet. “Please. You can sit.”

It was better to continue being honest. She liked that. “I guess I'm just used to standing behind you instead. I don't know…”

She wouldn't look at him. “Link. It’s fine. Please. You went through all the trouble of making this anyway. Please join me.”

She seemed to feel as he did. This was not something normal, but what did that even matter anymore? Who would be there to tell them it wasn't proper? Why did they even care?

Link decided he didn't need to. It was his house after all. His rules, well, maybe. He poured a water for both of them, into matching cups. Then he sat and raised one. “To rest,” he offered as a simple toast.

Zelda finally looked up at him. A tired smile tugged at her lips. She took her cup and lightly touched his with it. “A well-deserved one,” she added.

After that, the silence wasn't so bad. It was hard to talk with a mouthful of risotto anyway. That was a good enough excuse.

The topic of the things there were not two of came up as Link was clearing away the dishes. There wasn't a grain of rice left on either of them. 

He thought it best to be direct. “You can take the bed. I have a bedroll I can set up down here,” he volunteered.

He caught her looking up at the loft, confused for a moment, then understanding. “Are you sure?”

Link, for all of his uncharacteristic wordiness that day had no answer for her but a somewhat impolite stare. Are you kidding? His eyes tried to ask what his mouth would not. You are the princess, you get the bed.

She seemed to understand. “All right then.”

He took far too long gathering the dishes as she made her way upstairs. 

Finally, she couldn't help herself. Zelda's babbling came like a sigh of relief. “I wondered why you bothered with this place. I watched you as you went along, fighting for me, but still making time to help others, yet still doing nothing for yourself.”

She was fiddling with something on the desk. “Yet you bought yourself a house. I couldn't see everything, you know, but I knew enough to understand that. I wondered why you did, what you had planned for.”

He didn't know. He'd come across the carpenters there and had enough rupees in his pocket. It seemed like a shame to let the place be torn down. He didn't know why, but it did.

“I couldn't put my finger on it. I never claimed to be great at understanding you, but I knew that you never did anything for yourself. You were always about duty and honor. My father used to call you a good little soldier when we were young. He told me I should be more like you,” Zelda went on from above. 

“But then I remembered when you handed me that big plate of food. It's been so long. We stopped here once, at this house. We were on our way to visit the researchers at the Sheikah lab. You wanted to say hello to your grandparents. Your grandmother insisted on feeding us. Myself and all of the champions. No one objected, but she wouldn't have listened to us if we tried. The furniture was different then. There were more chairs, but Daruk broke one when your grandfather insisted that he sit in it.”

He nearly dropped the cup he was washing. A sudden flash came over him, and with it he expected a painful recognition to follow, but it didn't. Instead of a fond memory, it was just a hollow fact. His grandparents had lived here. They were now long gone. Nothing of theirs remained. This house was just a shell he had filled with things that didn’t mean anything, save a few weapons on the wall and the princess in the loft. 

Zelda noticed that he grown still. “Link?”

“I see,” he replied.

She was leaning on the railing, looking down with a smile that said she was pleased with herself for making the connection. It quickly turned into a flat line of concern. “Do you not remember them?” 

“No, I don't.”

He made an excuse of getting more water. He stood by the river for a long time, trying to fill the holes in his mind. 

There wasn’t much light left when he came back. The inside of the cottage had grown dim. Zelda seemed to have found her way to the bed. He could see a shape bundled under the covers, hopefully sleeping.

Link left the rest of the dishes for the morning. He quietly laid his bedroll out on the floor next to the little table and its two chairs. He laid down on it, trying not to think about anything, trying not worry. There was no more Calamity. He wasn’t staring down the end of the world anymore. He just wasn’t sure if bringing about the beginning of a new one was any easier.

Just as he thought the silence was settling into something sort of comfortable, Zelda asked from above him, “How do you do it?” 

“Do what?”

“The brave, stoic hero thing. Standing tall, keeping your emotions in check, acting like nothing matters to you. I know I upset you before, I had to have, but you didn’t even flinch,” she told him.

“I don’t know,” he told her, truthfully. This was going to be a thing, wasn’t it? “Was I like that before? Sometimes I think I was, but maybe…”

“You were,” she assured him. He could hear the rustle of the sheets as she sat up in the bed and leaned toward the railing. “You were always quiet and I don’t know...stern? No, not the right word. You were never cruel. You were just, there. Present. Watching. Doing your job, I guess.”

“A good little soldier,” he echoed from her earlier comment.

He heard her wince into a reply. “Yes. You were, though. I never understood it. I was always terrible at doing what I was told.”

“I guess I didn’t think there was any point in trying to do anything else. It was my fate to hold the sword, to be the hero, just as it was yours to seal Ganon away,” he told her.

“And you truly believe that?” she asked from the dark above him.

“After all that’s happened, you don’t?”

She had no answer for him. The sheets rustled again as she laid back down. 

Silence again, though this time crushing. How many nights of this would they endure? Sure, he could tell her of all the times he thought the tasks laid in front of him were impossible. He could have said something about the moment of utter freedom he felt, just as he was waking up, before her voice found him again. That moment where he had been bound by nothing and no one. He had belonged to himself for just and instant, and it had been terrifying.

A short time later, he heard her crying above him. He froze again, feeling as though he shouldn’t even dare to breathe.

But eventually, the feeling passed. Her muffled sobs did not. He relaxed into the quiet darkness and the very human sounds coming from the loft. Goddesses didn’t cry, after all. That was something of a relief. Zelda was still Zelda. She cried sometimes. She talked most times. She was silent only when something was wrong. He didn’t understand her. She didn’t understand him. They had never really needed to understand each other. They were just with one another. Always.

He rose quietly and fumbled in the dark for the water pitcher. He found a clean cup in the cabinets and managed to get most of the water in it, as opposed to around it. He traveled up the stairs with feet that found them familiar, but a head that did not. He didn’t know why he thought this was a good idea, but he brought the princess a cup of water as she cried.

“Here,” he said as he leaned down and placed it on the nightstand.

He couldn’t see it, but she rolled over. She didn’t reach for the water, but for him instead. 

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she whispered against his chest. Her face was a hot, wet mess of pressure against his collar bones. Her arms shook as they latched on to him.

He didn’t try to console her. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t ask why she was apologizing, or what for. He thought that he might know. He might not either. And that was fine. It didn’t matter.

He let his arms wrap back around her, feeling the odd angles of her bones as she twisted in the bed to reach him. 

She cried. He didn’t. It went on for a while. Link counted his slow breaths against her erratic ones. He didn’t tell her that he’d shed a few tears before by the river. What good would that do her? She needed strength. He could give that. He was good at that.

When her sobs began to calm down, when his shirt was just about soaked through in spots, she tried to pull away quickly. More disgusted with herself than with him, at least he hoped. He caught her, gently, but firm enough that he couldn’t squirm out of his grip. 

“You asked me before how I did it--how I acted like the hero I was supposed to be,” Link said as he relaxed his hold on her. She stayed. “I think you really wanted to ask why.”

“Why then?” Zelda asked.

“I didn’t want to do anything else. It felt right,” he told her. “I didn’t want to be a farmer or a cook or a researcher. I wanted that sword. I wanted the duty. I wanted to be the one…” 

He couldn’t see much in the dark. Neither could she. They thought they were looking at one another, trying to exchange words that could not be said. 

Link tried to think of some way to mention that he wanted to serve her without sounding odd, but couldn’t think of it. He had no idea what she was trying to say with her expression, and he probably would guess incorrectly even if he could see it. But he could feel the warmth of her hands on his elbows, and the little squeeze she gave them before she rolled away from him and back into the bed. 

It was something.

“I don’t think I want to go to Kakariko tomorrow,” she said to the wall.

“We don’t have to. It can wait,” he told her. 

“You don’t mind?”

He shook his head, but realized she couldn’t see him. Well, more words then. His mouth was going to have to get used to all this talking. “I never have.”

The next morning, they didn’t talk about how she didn’t let him leave the loft that night, or how he made a silent protest of refusing to take the space she made next to herself on the bed. He slept on the hard floor, for the few precious hours that he could manage to sleep. They didn’t talk about how when they stirred from their various nightmares, it was nice to hear the even breathing of someone else beside them, yet undisturbed. It served as a reminder that things might be normal again. A different normal. 

A normal without castle walls and tapestries. A normal without corridors upon corridors and rank and protocol between them. A normal only they would really ever understand, and even then, only share in small portions. Still the princess and her knight. Still going. Still living, somehow, and for some reason.

Instead of talking about it, they made omelettes out of the last of the food Link had left. Zelda was a miserable cook, mostly because princesses did not cook, but she could take direction and chop vegetables well enough. Link did all of the actual combining and cooking for the ingredients, of course. It gave them an excuse to talk about the technique for dicing mushrooms properly, instead of everything else.

They didn’t offer a toast over breakfast, but they sat again in two chairs, with two plates, and two cups. Zelda told him about the time when there had been eight chairs crammed into the little room. Seven after Daruk broke one. She told him what she remembered of that day, and though it was a poor excuse of any real memory of his own, it made him feel less empty. 

“It will come back to you, with time,” she assured him over the last bite of omelette. 

He nodded. “And rest.”


End file.
